Miscellaneous - September 2007

  by Admin

published: 7 / 9 / 2007

intro

Hello and welcome to the September edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine .A combination of circumstances-holidays and difficulties at work and at home-have contributed to making this a somewhat smaller edition than usual. Our lead interview this month

Hello and welcome to the September edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine A combination of circumstances-holidays and difficulties at work and at home -have contributed to making this a somewhat smaller edition than usual. Our lead interview this month is with the American singer-songwriter Stephanie Dosen. One of the latest signings to former Cocteau Twins’ member Simon Raymonde’s Bella Union label, she talks to Ben Howarth at her first headline gig in London about her relocation to Britain, her new all-girl band and her album, ‘A Lily for the Spectre’, which has been praised widely in the indie press. Elsewhere there are interviews as well with much acclaimed New York-based alt. folk outfit Akron/family ; Shearwater, the project of Okkervil River’s Jason Meiburg whose 2006 fourth album ‘Paolo Santo’ has just been re-released by Matador in a new double CD edition, and California Snow Story, the group of former Camera Obscura guitarist and songwriter David Skirving. We also have interviews with session guitarist, producer and one-time Willard Grant Conspiracy member Simon Alpin who has just released his debut album ‘On the Wire’, and new London-based Fortuna Pop signing my Sad Captains who have just put out their debut single, ‘Bad Decisions’. In our profiles section Anthony Strutt pays personal tribute to singer-songwriter Lee Hazlewood, who died in August, and there are also DVD reviews of 60’s rock documentary, ‘All My Loving’ and the first series of cult comedy ‘Star Stories’. We are running reviews of the Beautiful Days Festival, which is run by the Levellers, and Hungarian music festival, the Sziget Festival. There are also reviews of gigs by Harvey Williams and the Stations. Our features section finds Ben Howarth in his ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll’ looking at the departure of EMI’s latest boss, while in the delayed second part of his latest ‘Tales from the Sound Desk’ series soon-to-retire sound engineer and tour manager Phil Vincent tells of his escapades in Europe with a rising indie band. In our ‘Re : View’ series, in which we look back at albums from the past, Mark Rowland writes about rap compilation, ‘The Roots of Rap’, while Our Website of the Month is Pandora, a site in which you can customise your own radio station. There are 28 new album and single reviews. We ran a further 26 new reviews in our mid-month album and singles reviews in August. We have a new reviewer this month. Marton Nagy is a Budapest-based journalist and contributed the article on the Sziget festival. Thank you to Marton and thank you also to Aaron Brown, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Anthony Dhanendran, Tommy Gunnarsson, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Sarah Johnson, Geraint Jones, Sarah Maybank, Chris O’ Toole, Paul Raven, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Anthony Strutt, and Helen Tipping, all of whom have contributed articles and reviews to either this edition or the mid-month July reviews up-date. Special thanks to Richard Banks at Pennyblackmusic HQ. We will be back in mid September with another albums and singles reviews up-date, and then in early October with a full up-date. We hope to be running interviews then with Michael Gira, the House of Love, Darren Hayman, Qui, ex-Godfathers and Damned guitarist Kris Dollimore, Friends, the Woodentops, Piano Magic, 999 and Vinny Peculiar. There will be more in the 'Profiles'. We will also have another 'Re : View', another 'Website of the Month' and more features, live reviews and album and single reviews. Look forward to seeing some of you at our Bands Night at the Spitz on the 9th September. Thank you as always for reading. This magazine is dedicated to the memory of Margaret McKenzie with much love. John Clarkson Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk